Hibiscus moscheutos - Rose Mallow

Hibiscus moscheutos 
aka Swamp Rose Mallow, Rose Mallow, Crimsoneyed Rosemallow, Eastern Rosemallow
see below for more.

🌸Big, bold, beautiful blooms!🌸

Extravagant beauties with massive summer blooms up to 8" wide! These low maintenance perennials are Native to WNC and southeastern North America, in wetlands and creek edges. They are ideal for wet areas of the garden, happily growing in moist soil and even in water up to 6’’ deep. 

Bloom colors can vary via a range of white, pink, red, and burgundy. Use them as stunning specimens, in back borders of the garden, as a remarkable flowering hedge/screen/privacy fence. With their big, bold flowers and large foliage, they visually provide a coarse texture to the garden - contrast them with finer textured plants to create a rich, visual tapestry.

These surprisingly sturdy plants are adapted to handle heat, humidity, wet soils, and even some salt in the soils.

Magnificent and showy, they are ideal plants for: Butterfly Gardens, Cottage Gardens, Native Gardens, Pollinator Gardens, Rain Gardens, Wildlife Gardens, and more.

🏆Award-winning! 1997 NC Wildflower of the Year.

🐦Help birds: According to the Audubon Society, Rose Mallow plants are very helpful to birds via the ample nectar that the flowers provide. They may invite Hummingbirds, Mockingbirds, Blackbirds, New World Sparrows, Vireos, Waxwings, and Wood Warblers to the garden.

🦋Help butterflies & moths: In NC, they are the larval host plant for at least 3 different species of butterflies, provide nectar to at least 3 species of butterflies, and the host plant for at least 28 species of moths - including the very colorful and eye-catching Io Moth.

🐝Help bees: These plants are of particular importance to our native Hibiscus bee (Ptilothrix bombiformis) who feed their young an exclusive diet of pollen from Hibiscus plants. They look very similar to bumblebees. The dead stems are also used by stem-nesting bees.

🌞Full to part sun, with best blooming in full sun (6-8 hours of direct sunlight).

💧These plants love moisture! Put them in low or wet areas of the garden.

3-7’T x 2-5’W.

Zones 5-9, cold hardy down to -20F.

💚Plant Nerd: These plants have some edible parts! The gorgeous flowers, seeds, immature seed pods, roots, leaf buds, and young leaves can all be eaten, although not necessarily raw.

Hibiscus moscheutos has a long history of herbal/medicinal usage, related to the high amounts of mucilage found in the roots and leaves. An herbal tea or tisane made from the boiled leaves has been used to relieve sore throats and coughs, infusions of the dried stalks have been used for bladder issues, and the flowers used to sooth insect stings.

What's in a name? These plants have MANY different names, so you may find them called: Hibiscus incanus, Hibiscus moscheutos ssp. incanus, Hibiscus moscheutos ssp. moscheutos, Hibiscus moscheutos ssp. palustris, Hibiscus moscheutos var. purpurascens, Hibiscus oculiroseus, Hibiscus opulifolius, Hibiscus palustris, Hibiscus pinetorum, Muenchhusia moscheutos. They may also be called Common Rose Mallow, Crimson-eyed Rose-mallow, Eastern Rose-mallow, Hardy Hibiscus, Mallow Rose, Marshmallow Hibiscus, Purple Marsh Rose Mallow, Rose Mallow, Sea Hollyhock, Swamp Mallow, Swamp Rose, Swamp Rose-mallow, Wild Cotton - whew!

🐝More info on Hibiscus bees: to learn more about these interesting solitary bees, see this page from the USFS.